1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate generally to electronic communication systems and methods. More specifically, one or more embodiments relate to systems and methods for increasing functionality in an electronic communication system.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Computing devices (e.g., computers, tablets, and smart phones) provide numerous ways for people to connect and communicate with one another. For example, a variety of electronic communication systems provide various methods to send and receive electronic messages. For instance, a computing device can allow a user to communicate with other users using text messaging, instant messaging, social network posting, and other forms of electronic communication. In addition, an electronic communication may include a variety of content including text, images, video, audio, and/or other data. In general, electronic communication has become a popular way for people to connect and communicate with one another.
The popularity and ubiquitous nature of handheld devices (e.g., mobile phones) enable a user to engage in electronic communications throughout the day, regardless of the user's situation. For example, a person may engage in an electronic communication while at home, at work, at the grocery store, or while in any number of other situations. As such, a person's attention is frequently turned to a personal computing device while the person is typing out an electronic message.
Problems generally arise when a user's attention is frequently consumed by electronic communications. For example, typing electronic communications while driving is extremely dangerous and often leads to serious road accidents and traffic violations. Similarly, attempting to type an electronic communication while cooking, working, tending children, or any other activity that requires a person's full attention can lead to less than desirable results.
For this purpose, computing devices typically feature software capable of transcribing spoken words into text, thus freeing the user from the need to type electronic messages out. These “talk-to-text” programs are often problematic. For example, talk-to-text programs typically do not provide accurate transcriptions. Frequently, a user may speak a sentence only to receive a transcription full of incorrect words that make no sense together. Thus, a user generally may have to go back through the transcription to manually correct mistakes, negating the purpose of using talk-to-text in the first place.
Additionally, talk-to-text programs generally do not provide transcriptions for vocal cues, such as tonal inflexion or sarcasm. For example, a user may speak the sentence, “That's a great idea,” meaning to provide a sarcastic response to an electronic communication. A typical talk-to-text program would include no indicator of the intended sarcasm in the resulting transcription.
In some cases, a talk-to-text program may include the ability to calculate a confidence score associated with a talk-to-text transcription. A confidence score generally indicates the likelihood of the transcription of a word being correct. If the confidence score associated with a transcription is below a defined threshold, for example, the talk-to-text program can typically determine that the transcription is not correct.
Typical confidence scores, however, are problematic in that a typical confidence score is merely based on a signal analysis of a phoneme, word, phrase, or sentence. Thus, a typical confidence score fails to take into account many relevant factors. For example, many typical confidence score calculation methods fail to account for a word's context, or in other words, how one word fits into a group of words in a sentence. Accordingly, the resulting confidence score from many typical confidence score calculation methods provide misleading or false results.
Thus, there are several disadvantages to current methods for providing transcriptions in a messaging application.